Social Media Expo – Measure, Adapt, Change

Following the success of previous events at Hampden Park throughout 2013 and 2014, we were happy to hear the ultimate business show was returning to Glasgow this year for a Social Media & Marketing Expo.

With 120 exhibitors, 4 networking sessions, 14 seminar sessions and an array of opportunities, we were super excited to get involved and after a great day, we wanted to share our experience with you lovely people. So, here are our takeaways from the event…

Reach your market with Social Media

Geared up to expand her knowledge in social media and with coffee in hand, our Carly went along to the first session of the morning hosted by the hilarious Ross ‘Teddy’ Craig (former comedian and Content Strategist for Caliber). Despite what many people might think, social media is not a short term thing (I know… we’re like a broken record, but it’s true) - it has to be measured over the course of a year to gain full understanding of its effectiveness for business. After identifying the tone of voice required and the most effective channel for reaching the audience, it’s imperative to build a community filled with conversation.

"Entertain the audience with quality content to differentiate your business from the competition."

As well as providing some great social tips, Ross ended the session by introducing us to the very entertaining GCS Recruitment Twitter account to illustrate the point you don’t always have to focus on what your business offers. You can be as random and irrelevant as you want if it helps to build brand visibility.

The team here have already had a right good laugh at the Twitter account, check them out here and get some more social insights from Ross here.

Secrets of the little blue bird

Hosted by Graeme Innes from Creation Social Media, the second session of the morning was all about social favourite, Twitter. With 283 million users worldwide and the third largest search engine in the world, we were surprised to hear a huge 40% of Twitter users do not tweet!

Instead these users discover, listen, list and engage with the conversation. Twitter is all about getting the first impressions right so it’s really important to: use all 160 characters for you biography - how else will users know they want to engage with your account? Highlight key content - pin important tweets to the top of your Twitter account (this functionality is only available on desktop at the moment).

Twitter is all about making optimum impact in as little characters as possible so Graeme let us in on a few tips that are not so well known. Firstly, sharing four photos uses as many characters as it does to share one - so if pictures speak a thousand words, there’s an additional 4000 words to bolster your 140 character Tweet cap.

Secondly, to give tweets more content and add value, Graeme introduced the crowd to Shoutmatic - a cool little tool allowing you to add a 30 second voiceover to any tweet (providing access has been granted before).